2018 Season MLB Non-Phillies News/Notes Discussion

[phillychuck]

Player development occurs after players are signed. I'd think it's more likely than not that Kapler wasn't involved.

[julio]

Player development occurs after players are signed. I'd think it's more likely than not that Kapler wasn't involved.

My instinct here is to refrain from forming an opinion or judgment, pending evidence. To (rather egregiously) paraphrase Sherlock Holmes - drawing a conclusion prematurely, before you have the evidence, tends to cloud your objectivity as evidence is obtained.

Time will tell.

And let's not kid ourselves - nothing about this story is probably shocking to Middleton or Sal. It is a black market and every team shops it.

This is the larger point. MLB's involvement in Latin baseball is significantly corrupt, in a lot of ways. MLB in general, frankly, has more than a minor problem with corruption. Collusion among franchises over various labor-related issues, over time. "Lobbying" and "contributions" to friendly Congressmen (read: bribes) to protect MLB from the requirements of federal anti-trust law. A sometimes capriciously-enforced "anti-drug" policy for organizations that, a few decades ago, openly put bowls of amphetamines out in the locker room for the players to help themselves. Etc.

One might argue that it's "not fair" that a few individuals from a few organizations periodically get caught and disciplined...when frankly, the whole industry (MLB) "rots from the head."

[allentown]

It seems the directions of the investigation has been shaped by which organization the whistleblower was from. The investigation started with a big pile of incriminating internal documents from the Dodgers organization, so that is where the heat is. As the writer says, it doesn't matter how much you value analytics, it's probably not a good idea to make a graph of the magnitude of criminal behavior within your organization.

[Austinfan]

The fact that the new GM fired everyone a year after taking over counsels patience.

Why wait so long? Well for one thing you'd better have done an internal investigation before you engage in wholesale terminations or you might be facing a defamation or other suit. And before you gut your organization, it's standard OP to line up replacements.

The fact that they actually compiled a list of all the people they worked with and ranked them according to perceived corruption suggests they were aware of a problem and were trying to identify the really bad apples and avoid working with them - but in LA I doubt you can find many local agents with pristine hands.

[andyb]

Player development occurs after players are signed. I'd think it's more likely than not that Kapler wasn't involved.

Mostly though I wonder if the people that run the Dominican complex report to the player development director. Getting underage kids to workout in the complex might be the equivalent of getting 15-year-olds to play on the right AAU travel team.

I think Kapler's exposure is minimal here and most likely he is mentioned as a name that has now gone on to bigger things, but we also can't dismiss it entirely.

[tom81]

The Dodgers Might Be in Actual Legal Trouble | FanGraphs Baseball

The Grand Jury probe into Major League Baseball may be worse than it first looked …

Wasn’t really sure where to put this as it affects all of baseball and it looks like the Dodgers may be in trouble. We all know that human trafficking is a problem for the sport and this article seems to point to the Dodgers as a major offender. One important note is that the end of the article mentions Kapler as a possible perpetrator.

Here maybe

Federal investigation into LA dealings

[nycphils]

Foreign Corrupt Practice Act and related offenses are no joke - even failing to detect these issues
can create legal problems, let alone Having knowledge And failing to fire the relevant person and/or not reporting it.

[zambonir]

At least one prominent American businessman-turned-elected-official has previously said it is "a horrible law."

(Which is what makes this interesting, tbh. Where is the enforcement impetus coming from, and who is it really targeting?)

[Austinfan]

Especially given the New Yorker articles describing his possible violations.

[zambonir]

Speaking of major league front office executives and federal crime...

Exclusive: Astros’ database hacker opens up

[zambonir]

re: Machado

Three Things: Evaluating the defenses of each LCS team

2. Manny Machado had poor defensive numbers at shortstop with the Orioles (-18 Defensive Runs Saved), but has saved five runs in 51 games with the Dodgers. Machado is capable of greatness in the field — our video scouts credited him with 35 Good Fielding Plays, fifth-most by a shortstop this season. He can be a difference maker beyond what he does with the bat.

You have to think there is some sort of unmeasurable correlation between simply being on a bad team and a good team, which also must be true of the Phillies. Because as this article shows clearly elite teams are shifting fools, so is the Phillies' problem tactics, talent or talent not executing the tactics?

The other thing about Machado is he's a shortstop who hadn't played SS in years. He's only going to get better until age catches up with him. But his second and third year back at the position will almost certainly be better than his first.

[andyb]

The other thing about Machado is he's a shortstop who hadn't played SS in years. He's only going to get better until age catches up with him. But his second and third year back at the position will almost certainly be better than his first.

Which is why I have no problem with him playing SS for a couple of years if that is a factor in getting him. He is also enough of a team player that moving to 3B would not be a huge issue if it became apparent that his SS defense was hurting the team. I think Crawford COULD be better at SS than Machado defensively, but we don't really know that yet. Crawford made too many errors and had a shoulder injury that did not help this season, so we really don't have a feel for how good his defense is yet either.

[zambonir]

Rosenthal goes into this further today too. Basically: LA had better analytics but also far better pitching, and yes, he probably got better as he got more time playing the position.

Rosenthal: Dispute on how the Orioles used analytics rages...

[zambonir]

I'll be surprised if the Phillies don't continue to emulate the Dodgers here. They're not doing it with truly elite talent (though they certainly have better players and, for now, more payroll). Yeah, the Phillies need to sign Machado or Harper but beyond that they'll fill holes with a mix of developing players, current vets used differently (or less frequently) and new acquisitions.

(Of course this was written before they lost tonight.)

The Dodgers’ Edge? Their Lineup of Swiss Army Knives

[zambonir]

The tweeter's attitude aside, interesting to see how they word things (and what they are interested in). I'm sure the Phillies are the same.

Kyle Boddy (drivelinebases)

[allentown]

Absolutely hitting coaches and teams need to understand these new concepts, but they need a deep understanding, which they've challenged, tested, and confirmed with real data over multiple seasons, not the shallow, dabbling understanding which the Phillies seem to have at this point. Houston has been big on this stuff for years, as have the Dodgers. We are beginners and the stats say we haven't gotten it right. We haven't reached the point where we have been able to use this new thinking to improve our team. Our fielding quality collapsed with the switch to the new. Our hitting has been problematic.

[tom81]

I wouldn’t think they get a lot of ton of former MLB hitters with SQL and R coding skills

[allentown]

There is no need for the stats guys to have played baseball at all. You don't need to be a former MLB or even minor league player to analyze and understand the game. You do have to spend a LOT of time analyzing data, constructing hypotheses, testing them against more data, turning your hypotheses into actionable models, testing the models in the real world, hopefully beginning with your team's minor leagues and then continuing to further refine your models. It's not that other teams have baseball guys doing their analytical work. It's that other teams have been working at this a lot longer than our guys have. We aren't last, but we're among the new kids on the block.

When I worked in coal liquefaction technology, we hired a very bright chemist from MIT to pioneer use of gc-mass spec at our company. Since the coal liquefaction project was government supported, it became his first emphasis. He knew a lot about gc-mass spec, but had done zero prior work in identifying the chemicals present in coal liquid, which was the solvent for our reaction. He was supposed to develop a solvent-quality index which would help us improve our liquefaction practice. He never supplied any useful information -- not because he wasn't super bright, not because he wasn't hard working, not because he didn't have an intimate knowledge of how to do gc-mass spec, but because he was starting close to decade behind his counterparts at our competitors. He was as skilled at gc-mass spec as they were, he was identifying individual chemicals in the solvent and making steady progress. In a few more years, I'm sure he would have gotten there. Meanwhile, Richard Neville at Exxon had already developed a proprietary gc-mass spec based solvent quality index. We had a little over two years to catch up to what he already had. We didn't make it. We didn't not make it because Dick Neville started out knowing more about coal than our guy.

That is how I see the current status of use of stats analysis with the Phillies. It will eventually get there and close much of the gap between ourselves and Houston/Dodgers/etc. but it's not there now.

[mdougherty12]

Kiley McDaniel from Fangraphs ranks the top teams for near to medium-term organizational health:

Here’s Who Will Win the Next Five World Series | FanGraphs Baseball

The Phillies don't make the top 7, but are listed among the "honorable mentions".

[allentown]

It sounds not so much honorable mention in our case as simply acknowledging that the Phillies have a high salary ceiling, coupled with just about total uncertainty about the Phillies actual plan/direction:

"The Phillies have a high payroll ceiling and you could argue they’re just a year or two behind the Braves in the same process. That said, they’ve indicated they won’t spend wildly this offseason, and all but two players in the whole organization are reportedly available in the right deal, so most would like to have a little more certainty about the specific direction."

We are among the half dozen teams that some have suggested should round out the top 10. I guess that means we can safely consider ourselves among the top half of organizations in terms of our future a few years down the road.